Sabrina Thomas

Department of History Affiliate

Department of Gender & Women’s Studies Affiliate

Dr. Sabrina Thomas is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at UW-Madison. Her research takes a transnational approach to the intersections of race, nation, and war and examines questions of citizenship, identity, and diaspora through the legacies of children born from international conflict. Her first book, Scars of War: The Politics of Paternity and Responsibility for the Amerasians of Vietnam, (University of Nebraska Press, 2021) considered the issue of U.S. citizenship for the Amerasian children of Vietnam. Scars of War was awarded the 2021 “Best First Book” prize from Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society and was nominated for the Bancroft Prize. Dr. Thomas is the author of numerous articles including “Blood Politics: Reproducing the Children of ‘Others’ in the 1982 Amerasian Immigration Act” published in the Journal of American-East Asian Relations (2019), and “When War Creates Life: Race, Nation, and Belonging for Children Born from War,” to the Cambridge History of War and Society in America (2024). She is currently working on her second book, The Soul of Blood and Borders: Brown Babies, Black Amerasians, and the African American Response. Prior to Texas Tech University, Dr. Thomas was an Associate Professor and the David A. Moore Chair of American History at Wabash College. She earned a B.A. in History from Colorado State University, M.S. in Counseling from Butler University, and Ph.D. in History from Arizona State University. Her recent interview on the podcast, Military Historians are People Too, is now available on Apple podcasts.